The death of his father made it necessary for him to support his mother. He sought for some employment where his education might be put to some use, but finding such places closed to him, he became an elevator boy. He continued to write, however, and in 1892 his first volume was published, a book of poems called Oak and Ivy. The publishers were so doubtful of its success that they would not bring it out until a friend advanced the cost of publication. Paul now sold books to the passengers in his elevator, and realized enough to repay his friend. He was occasionally asked to give readings from his poetry. Gifted as he was with a deep, melodious voice, and a fine power of mimicry, he was very successful. In 1893 he was sought out by a man who was organizing a concert company and who engaged Paul to go along as reader. Full of enthusiasm, he set to work committing his poems to memory, and writing new ones. Ten days before the company was to start, word came that it had been disbanded. Paul found himself at the approach of winter without money and without work, and with his mother in real need. In his discouragement he even thought of suicide, but by the help of a friend he found work, and with it courage. In a letter written about this time he tells of his ambitions: "I did once want to be a lawyer, but that ambition has long since died out before the all-absorbing desire to be a worthy singer of the songs of God and nature. To be able to interpret my own people through song and story, and to prove to the many that we are more human than African."
A second volume of poems, Majors and Minors, appeared in 1895. Like his first book it was printed by a local publisher, and had but a small sale. The actor James A. Herne happened to be playing Shore Acres in Toledo; Paul saw him, admired his acting, and timidly presented him with a copy of his book. Mr. Herne read it with great pleasure, and sent it on to his friend William Dean Howells, who was then editor of Harper's Weekly. In June, 1896, there appeared in that journal a full-page review of the work of Paul Laurence Dunbar, quoting freely from his poems, and praising them highly. This recognition by America's greatest critic was the beginning of Paul's national reputation. Orders came for his books from all over the country; a manager engaged him for a series of readings from his poems, and a New York firm, Dodd Mead & Co., arranged to bring out his next book, Lyrics of Lowly Life.
In 1897 he went to England to give a series of readings. Here he was a guest at the Savage Club, one of the best-known clubs of London. His readings were very successful, but a dishonest manager cheated him out of the proceeds, and he was obliged to cable to his friends for money to come home.
Through the efforts of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, the young poet obtained a position in the Congressional Library at Washington. It was thought that this would give him just the opportunity he needed for study, but the work proved too confining for his health. The year 1898 was marked by two events: the publication of his first book of short stories, Folks From Dixie, and his marriage to Miss Alice R. Moore. In 1899 at the request of Booker T. Washington he went to Tuskeegee and gave several readings and lectures before the students, also writing a school song for them. He made a tour through the South, giving readings with much success, but the strain of public appearances was beginning to tell upon his health. He continued to write, and in 1899 published Lyrics of the Hearthside, dedicated to his wife. He was invited to go to Albany to read before a distinguished audience, where Theodore Roosevelt, then governor, was to introduce him. He started, but was unable to get farther than New York. Here he lay sick for weeks, and when he grew stronger, the doctors said that his lungs were affected and he must have a change of climate. He went to Colorado in the fall of 1899, and wrote back to a friend: "Well, it is something to sit under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, even if one only goes there to die." From this time on his life was one long fight for health, and usually a losing battle, but he faced it as courageously as Robert Louis Stevenson had done. In Colorado he wrote a novel, The Love of Landry, whose scene was laid in his new surroundings. He returned to Washington in 1900, and gave occasional readings, but it was evident that his strength was failing. He published two more volumes, The Strength of Gideon, a book of short stories, and Poems of Cabin and Field, which showed that his genius had lost none of its power. His last years were spent in Dayton, his old home, with his mother. He died February 10, 1906.
One of the finest tributes to him was paid by his friend Brand Whitlock, then Mayor of Toledo, who has since become famous as United States Minister to Belgium during the Great War. This is from a letter written when he heard that the young poet was dead:
Paul was a poet: and I find that when I have said that I have said the greatest and most splendid thing that can be said about a man.... Nature, who knows so much better than man about everything, cares nothing at all for the little distinctions, and when she elects one of her children for her most important work, bestows on him the rich gift of poesy, and assigns him a post in the greatest of the arts, she invariably seizes the opportunity to show her contempt of rank and title and race and land and creed. She took Burns from a plough and Paul from an elevator, and Paul has done for his own people what Burns did for the peasants of Scotland—he has expressed them in their own way and in their own words.